The car manufacturer Magna Steyr was paid in worthless shares to build cars for Fisker Inc., something that now offers the accounts a loss of billions of kroner.
In the latest quarterly accounts , the car factory Magna Steyr in Austria is forced to write down values for billions of Danish kroner.
It happens after the bankruptcies began in Fisker Inc.'s subsidiaries in June, while the parent company itself sought bankruptcy protection in the United States.
Magna Steyr was not paid in cash for the cars they built for Fisker. Instead, the payment fell in the form of shares, which quickly became worthless when Fisker Inc. was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange shortly before bankruptcy protection.
However, it is not only the fact that Fisker has left and will probably never return that hurts the people of Austria, the quarterly accounts show.
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– Due to Fisker's bankruptcy; the planned end of production of the Jaguar E-Pace and I-Pace, the BMW Z4 and the Toyota Supra, and Ineo's decision not to continue with the production of its electric car, the accounts say.
In total, the company has booked write-downs for $261 million, equivalent to $1.7 billion, due to Fisker's disappearance alone. In addition, the Austrians reduce their hopes for future sales by 600 million dollars – i.e. almost 4.1 billion kroner.
Car production in Graz, where Magna Steyr is based, began in 1906 when Puch built cars. But it was only after 1971, when a joint venture with Mercedes for the G-Class came up, that the factory really cemented its place in the car industry.
Now only the license agreement with Mercedes for the new G-Class remains in the order books, and the future is uncertain for Magna Steyr. In any case, questions have already been raised as to whether the factory can continue operating as before.
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